Jacob saw his father's face grow pale
in the moonlight, while he pressed his hand involuntarily upon his
heart, as if struggling with some physical pain. At last he spoke,
but his words were strange and incoherent.
"I couldn't sleep," he said; "I got up again and came out o' doors.
The white ox had broken down the fence at the corner, and would
soon have been in the cornfield. I thought it was that, maybe, but
still your--your mother would come into my head. I was coming down
the edge of the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was
that you seemed so different, all at once--"
Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then he said, in a
grave, commanding tone: "Just let me know the whole story. I have
that much right yet."
Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat awkwardly and
confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief, pointed questions
kept him to the narrative, and forced him to explain the full
significance of the expressions he repeated. At the mention of
"Whitney's place," a singular expression of malice touched the old
man's face.
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